Jony Ive on How Product Naming Influences Design Philosophy

macrumors bot

Just a couple days after a clip of Jony Ive's appearance on BBC's Blue Peter was revealed, journalist Tom Davenport (via CNET) says he's found an insightful portion of the clip that was cut out. In the new segment, Ive talks about how product naming philosophy can affect the design process.

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If we're thinking of lunchbox, we'd be really careful about not having the word 'box' already give you bunch of ideas that could be quite narrow. You think of a box being a square, and like a cube. And so we're quite careful with the words we use, because those can determine the path that you go down.

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As mentioned previously, Ive was a fan of Blue Peter while he was growing up and talks about a design he saw on the show that's stuck with him over the years. This is just another look at Ive's design process, which he's started talking about more and more over the years as Apple's profile has risen and as Ive and his team have received more accolades, which includes his knighting last May.

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Just this video shows how much thought Jony puts into design. Critics can say that Apple is loosing its ground in OS X or iOS is becoming dated. But design is the only thing about Apple that has never been criticized. That's how good it is. Jony is Apple's greatest remaining soul.

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I never realized how down to earth and sweet this guy is. I figured that being apart of on the biggest corporations in world would mess with his ego. Good for him. Can't wait to see his take on software design.

macrumors regular

Weren't you watching and listening? He wouldn't use the word "box" in the name

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"iLunch"
The worlds most advanced lunch pail.
Integrated calorie counter and fitness planner.
Messages and Twitter integration: connects to other iLunch devices and shares what they are eating, " Sally we know you had a third snack pack".
Gatekeeper- will not allow anything over 450 calories into the iLunch device.
And finally lunch automation: it mixes your mio flavor drink for you.

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Your app for managing and backing up your smartphone contacts and apps, sync all your photos, and download e-books.

"iPhone"

The device you use to browse the web, access social networks, send text messages to your friends, check the weather, play games, tether your computer...

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I think his point is rather more subtle than how you should name your products. As I understood him, he suggests being careful what words you use in the design process so as to not get caught up in predefined notions of what certain words represent. You still might end up calling your end product the "magical lunch box" even if it looks like no lunch box you've ever seen, just as you might end up calling your hand held touchscreen computer a "phone".

Don't know if it's the best example in this context, but I'm kind of reminded of some of the early hard-drive based MP3 players right around the time the first iPod was released, that looked like portable CD players for some reason:

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I think his point is rather more subtle than how you should name your products. As I understood him, he suggests being careful what words you use in the design process so as to not get caught up in predefined notions of what certain words represent. You still might end up calling your end product the "magical lunch box" even if it looks like no lunch box you've ever seen, just as you might end up calling your hand held touchscreen computer a "phone".

Don't know if it's the best example in this context, but I'm kind of reminded of some of the early hard-drive based MP3 players right around the time the first iPod was released, that looked like portable CD players for some reason:Image

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This is exactly the point Ive was making.

He didn't say that he would avoid naming a finished product around it's styling and or functions.

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Just this video shows how much thought Jony puts into design. Critics can say that Apple is loosing its ground in OS X or iOS is becoming dated. But design is the only thing about Apple that has never been criticized. That's how good it is. Jony is Apple's greatest remaining soul.

Click to expand...

havent there been plenty of critics of the similar design of the last few iphones and the new imac?

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"iLunch"
The worlds most advanced lunch pail.
Integrated calorie counter and fitness planner.
Messages and Twitter integration: connects to other iLunch devices and shares what they are eating, " Sally we know you had a third snack pack".
Gatekeeper- will not allow anything over 450 calories into the iLunch device.
And finally lunch automation: it mixes your mio flavor drink for you.

And it's only 400$.

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Available in black/slate or white, and in 32 or 64 bite versions.
A rumored 'Mini bite' version will be offered for Lent, and discontinued after Easter.

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havent there been plenty of critics of the similar design of the last few iphones and the new imac?

and i have no who controls that but whats with the everchanging nano?

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You're kind of right. For the iphone, Apple may have something new and refreshing coming up for the iPhone. But the main criticism for iPhone 5 is not the actual aesthetics and functionality of design, its the dated iOS and lack of a big screen with a proper aspect ratio (instead of just tall). Also, I believe, the new iMac is criticized mainly for the performance hit (5400RPM HDD) it took from the thin design and the resulting inaccessibility, not the actual design itself. So these issues are indirectly related to design but mainly have to do with hardware engineering, but damn they still look so good.

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To use an American term. Jonny "it's time to step up to the plate" son! in relation to iOS 7

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Unfortunately by the time he took over UI design iOS7 would have been pretty far along so I suspect there will not be much of Ive in it. iOS8 is going to be the one greatly influenced by him so it will be interesting to see the direction this goes over the next couple of years after he has had time to build a UI team aligned with his design ethos.

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